Signs of a Maturing Soul

The signs of someone maturing on the spiritual path aren't that hard to spot. Especially for those of you who have awakened, embracing your spiritual awakening lends itself to often dramatic inner shifts. However, that still doesn't mean that other people will notice. In a world where people are caught up looking at the surfaces, many people won't be able to see past the packaging to notice all the inner crap that has been removed from inside.

Which as always is why we don't look for external validation on the spiritual path. Coincidentally, this is a sign of a maturing soul. The maturing soul needs external approval less and less as s/he develops. This doesn't come from a sense of being better than anyone. Quite the reverse, it comes from a deep sense of humility. Along with that, the maturing soul embraces the space of being nobody. Nobody doesn't need validation. Nobody doesn't need to be somebody.

But some of this may not be immediately apparent to those of you earlier in your shifts. You may wonder what a maturing soul looks/feels like and not understand the maturation process that you're in. So today's blog post offers some sign of soul maturation, and most of them only you in the honesty of your own heart will know if they're arising.

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Less Interested in Approval

Since I've already mentioned this one in the opening paragraph, let's start here. A maturing soul finds him/herself less and less interested in any kind of approval. Much like my nature metaphors, the orange tree doesn't grow her oranges to make people happy or make people feel nourished. If happiness and nourishment are the byproducts, that's fine. Sometimes, other people won't like her oranges. That's fine too. She simply grows what she grows because it comes naturally.

At earlier stages of someone's development, the need for approval and validation on the spiritual path is much stronger. The many ego issues involved in seeking approval have not yet been addressed, and they're still pulling all the strings. In this way, many people can become trapped on the spiritual path trying to get approval from gurus, ministers, rabbis, imams, and other spiritual teachers rather than listening to their own divine inner awareness. Other people get trapped in trying to do "spiritual" things to help others to get approval from their clients/students/patients/etc.

For yet others, self-approval is what is most heavily sought. Ultimately, it's all our own approval that we are seeking. As such, an individual is tied up in not approving themselves and then creating an elaborate game to gain their own approval. So a person decides that the only way they can be happy is to feel a certain type of spiritual high all the time. Now they have to get that felling otherwise they don't have their own approval. And with any experience, it will come and go. So they'll be stuck in craving for a long-time. It's an endless and unhealthy loop, and the maturing soul has learned to drop a lot of that.

Faster Processing of Issues

After someone has learned to deal with surface level issues and mid-level issues and gut-level/hard core issues, processing stuff as it comes up goes much quicker. The ego resistance that was there before is largely gone. You also know how to handle issues. Your heart, body, mind, and energy have all learned how to learn, heal, and grow. So when something comes up, you take whatever space you need to and be with the shift, revealing, or whatever is moving. This speeds up the processing of issues.

Furthermore, when we first have an issue moving through us at the start of our spiritual journeys, we generally don't have any space for it. It's like a little bit of water trying to flow through a 1 millimeter wide pipe. If a lot of water is moving, the pipe is stressed. Well, fortunately, that pipe is an illusion in many respects, and it is something that can grow and expand. The maturing soul has a much larger pipe for energetic shifts because of their inner work and their own spiritual growth. Let's say it's now a meter wide. That means that same shift from the beginning can come and go with virtually no real upset to you. It takes a lot more energy and a lot stronger issues to cause much inner turbulence, but once again, you know how to deal with it. So intense core issues can come up, but the inner ability to witness and dissolve into issues softens a lot of the intensity and shortens the time for integrating.

And of course, the maturing soul understands that most of that is not a "doing." It's an allowing of issues to process.

The Drama of the Ego Is Replaced by Equanimity

Equanimity--that sense of inner balance and poise in the mental, emotional, physical, and psychic levels--becomes an ever more dominant aspect of a maturing soul. After awakening, a lot of false equanimity--the external ego that might look like it has everything under control--is blown away. The processing of emotions, energy, and issues is intense as many of you know. During the initial transitions, the drama of the ego can reach a new fevered pitch. For those who are not mindful, they never make it past this initial part of healing. They cling on to the ego for dear life until the floodwaters of a spiritual awakening diminish. For those of you who did not do this, you probably can both understand why a person responds in this way and understand what a missed opportunity it is.

But for those who are sincere, the ego issues and beliefs are unveiled, processed, and released. This tends to lead to deeper processing, but peace and equanimity start to be revealed the deeper you go. For some people, that's sooner, and for others, it's later. The types of issues that people have to confront are varied. For those with a lot of pain to sift through such as trauma or abuse, that peace may not come for some time. But it is there. Peace and inner equanimity have always been there. For the maturing soul, that is where they reside more and more. In turn, that makes you far less reactive to anything that is going on in the world. The drama of everyday life becomes of little interest and no cause for reactive response to the maturing soul.

Deepening and Abiding Sense of Love

The maturing soul doesn't love in the sense of the romantic love that is hot and passionate and fervent. That kind of love is accessible to the maturing soul, but so are all the other kinds of love. Most important to a maturing soul is the love that embraces all as it is. That is true love. As a person continues to mature, that's the love they abide in more and more in all situations. I don't want to say that people immediately go there and stay there. We are all very, very human, and at the same time, I don't want you to think that you can't. This abiding love is always here just like that space of peace and equanimity. Rather I am pointing to the very human process of expanding and growing. Just like a tree growing in the woods, we seem to expand our hearts over time, filling up more and more of our lives.

This deepening and abiding love changes how the mature soul reacts to relationships. Because the maturing soul doesn't need love, they don't engage in relationships to get any kind of feeling. They're going to do it because they feel guided to do it or it feels supportive in some way. While others who are very immature are busy trying to find a perfect soulmate, the maturing soul is more and more at peace with whoever is in his/her life and is focused on experiencing the love that is present in the current moment in whatever form that is here and now

Drawn Towards Nourishment

Because a lot of the world's entertainment, activities, jobs, and relationships are very unhealthy, the maturing soul loses interests in a lot of these things. Many of you who are passing through stages of apathy aren't really as apathetic as you think. You're simply noticing what is unhealthy and are losing interest in it. That's not apathy. That's common sense. You wouldn't drink raw sewage water, would you? And that's what sugar, alcohol, late-night partying with drugs, and so forth are like to human energy. Sure, a maturing soul may engage in those and other activities from time to time because s/he can do whatever they want. But anything that isn't really nourishing naturally becomes less and less of interest.

Instead, what is nourishing to a maturing soul becomes the primary focus. It's just common sense (as I've already said and will probably say again). A maturing soul is drawn to nourishing relationships, places, work, and other things. The deepest nourishment, however, is always within, and that inner nourishment only makes it easier to see what is nourishing from the external world. Where before we were too cut off from ourselves and numb to make these distinctions, being nourished by our own love and that divine connection that is always here makes all of these distinctions so much clearer.

In this way, life simplifies for the maturing soul. Such a person looks at opportunities and asks after a fashion, "Does this nourish me or not?" It doesn't mean a maturing soul won't do difficult things; this person has already learned how discomfort and challenge can also feed their soul. But many difficulties and challenges aren't necessary, and the maturing soul will flow towards wherever support and nourishment are most natural.

At Ease in Letting Go

Finally, the last sign of a maturing soul I'd like to point to is an ease in letting go. Nothing is ever lost. The maturing soul understands this. So if a job goes, then it goes. If a partnership is done, s/he lets that go. It doesn't mean that they don't care. Quite the reverse, a maturing soul loves through letting go. Dragging something out that is over is painful. And the maturing soul is in no way interested in perpetuating suffering of any kind.

Furthermore, the maturing soul understands that when one thing leaves space is made for another. The maturing soul is also at peace with remaining in this spaciousness without trying to fill it; patience is another hallmark of the maturing soul.

Sometimes life offers something to replace what has left. Sometimes, it doesn't. The maturing soul isn't concerned either way. Only the ego cares about losing things, and the more mature the soul, the more at peace they are even when loved ones pass. They know that the soul is never separate from the divine, it only changes form.

Appreciating the Human Process

My last point and the reason why I used the term "maturing soul" today is to appreciate the human process. I've heard a lot of people talking about spiritually bypassing things, which is impossible. We cannot bypass being human. Many traditions seem to be ignoring that we all go through phases and shifts and growth. In embracing the ultimate truth and divine love, this actually furthers our growth and impels us to face issues. We don't get away from ourselves.

Maturing souls understand this. They don't look for the "ultimate" perfection of themselves. They understand that perfection is always here and now. It is not an idea, and it can never be achieved as a form of doing. Being is the ultimate realization, and with that space of being, the maturing soul naturallu sheds layers of more and more subtle illusion and ego as they so choose and their path so determines. In this way, the maturing soul is at peace with however realized or unrealized they are, having the humility to dig deeper if they feel called and the self-love to accept themselves as they are.